Of Diplomacy
by payroo
Summary: Cyrion Tabris expected and wanted nothing more than a mundane family life. Adaia, his bride from the Amaranthine alienage, brought him everything but. The hitherto untold story behind the city elf origin.
1. Chapter 1

Cyrion Tabris awaited his wedding day with a mixture of pride and anxiety.

He was proud that his father finally considered him mature enough to start his own family, that his mother finally realized he was no longer a child, was ready to have his own children. These were all known factors he had been anticipating and he welcomed them eagerly. Cyrion liked to believe that he had been brought up well. He understood filial piety and familial duty and was glad to assume his new role.

What filled the pit of his stomach with gnawing anxiety was the unknown. They had only been able to set aside a pittance for his dowry, and he had no idea what to expect from his bride from far Amaranthine. His friends had joked with him, saying that she must be a real terror if they were willing to send her from Amaranthine for such a paltry amount, and Cyrion had laughed in turn. But worry had settled in his gut behind his smile.

As he lay in a single bed for the last time, he prayed to Andraste that his new wife be as sensible and dutiful as himself. All he wanted was a nice respectable family, plain enough to escape the notice of the humans, comfortable enough to raise a well-fed child in peace. The very thought of such a future calmed him, and Cyrion's eternal optimism and faith in the Maker won out against his anxiety, sleep claiming him at last.

-

Adaia was so furious she could not sleep.

She would have sprung out of bed and done a training exercise if not for her distant cousin snoring in the bed across the room. As it was, she was sorely tempted to knock him upside the head and flee into the night.

The whole affair was humiliating and degrading, and even more so because her own people inflicted it upon her. _Shems_ she could hate with a clear, clean bitterness, but when her fellow elves acted like so many sheep the sodden mixture of disgust, anger, and sad disappointment nearly made her sick.

Even the _hahren_'s daughter, for whom she had given up everything (admittedly, that did not encompass much) to save, had no words or even a friendly eye for her when she was _escorted_ out of the Alienage. Adaia wondered if the stupid wench would rather have been dragged away by that pig of a nobleman if it meant avoiding trouble.

_Avoiding trouble._ Adaia's blood burned at the hated phrase. They were all sheep, worse than sheep, for they herded themselves. When one sheep's head rose a little too high off the ground, the others quickly butted it back down.

And when there was a goat among them, well, the sheep ousted her of their own accord. No dog required.

Adaia had not been expecting a hero's welcome, but she had at least hoped for some sort of gratitude. She had hoped to inspire them, even if only a little, to stand up for themselves.

Instead she found herself in a mockery of a trial by the alienage elders. The _hahren_ had been at a loss as to what to do. He had at least had the decency to look vaguely thankful, but even that small sentiment was soon overwhelmed by the fear of the sheep, so thick Adaia could smell its stench.

_Turn her in_, one fearful mother of six had urged. _She's nothing but trouble._

_We don't want trouble_, and the usual mantra started again. _We should keep our heads down, we should avoid trouble._

Get rid of her. Let her be the sacrificial lamb for the humans, if she wants to be such a big hero.

Adaia had turned up her nose at them, barely able to contain her shaking. She was not afraid, she had insisted to herself, she was only angry, and the clean hot rage burned away everything else. _Go ahead, turn me in_, she had growled. _I'll take down twenty_ shem _with me._

The _hahren_ had intervened then, citing another tired reason: Adaia was young and presumably fertile, and there were few enough elves left in Thedas. As fate would have it, he had just received a dossier of available and interested bachelors down in Denerim. Let her do at least this minimal duty to her people, and bring new blood to another alienage.

So it was that they sold her to the cheapest bidder, the lowest dossier coming from some family named Tabris. The goat was to be made into another breeding cow that would hopefully birth more stupid sheep.

And here she was now, lying in bed with her fists clenched and her teeth gritted and her only living relative, the dimwitted distant cousin, snoring across the room. He had been sent along as an "escort" (though clearly his role was to stop her from reneging rather than to protect her. She was perfectly capable of defending herself, as the alienage was all-too-aware.) but Adaia suspected that the alienage wanted to weed out as much of her bad blood as possible.

She curled her fingers around the dagger by her pillow, the only weapon she had been allowed to bring. Fang, as she had named it, crackled with the soft lightning of enchantment, her last memento of her parents before they had been slain in a riot five years ago. Those were the days before the alienage had collectively decided to castrate itself, when blood ran freely in the streets but proud and hot in elven veins.

At long last Fang's low thunder lulled her into an uneasy sleep filled with dreams of idiot sheep and bitter rage.


	2. Chapter 2

Cyrion waited at the gate, dressed in the best finery the alienage had to offer. His father stood strong and proud on one side of him, his mother radiant and loving on the other side. The nervousness gnawed at his insides still, but it was overshadowed by a warm glow as he stood between his parents and waited for his bride.

Too late and too soon she arrived.

So much for a plain wife. She was strikingly, violently, fatally beautiful. Already appreciative heads were turning and shooting envious glares at Cyrion, who trembled in his suddenly all-too-rustic velvet.

She looked around with a motion hawklike in its smooth quickness and fixed her stare on Cyrion. Her eyes were like flint: hard and grey, but liable to spark.

"I suppose you're my husband-to-be," and she walked toward him with bold, wide strides unbefitting of the traditional white wedding smock she wore. By her side trailed an inferior male shadow of her, sporting the same rust red hair and grey eyes but minus her fire and flint. A relative, Cyrion presumed. He rather wished his bride-to-be had the same agreeable expression as this relative.

"Adaia." She gave him a curt, almost martial nod and extended a hand. "Tabris, I presume?"

"Cyrion," and she squeezed his proferred hand once, as if testing him. He had the unpleasant feeling he failed the test.

"Let's just get this over with." Adaia cleared her throat and crossed her arms. Cyrion couldn't help but notice the white lines of scars crisscrossing over the traverses of lean muscle. "I'm going to come clean right up front. I'm not what you're looking for in a wife. I was only sent here because the elves back in Amaranthine couldn't stand me anymore."

"Oh," Cyrion's head spun. "Er, if you don't mind me asking, why would you think that?"

"I crippled a nobleman for trying to rape the _hahren_'s daughter," and for the first time, Adaia grinned. It was a terrible sight, all the more so for how achingly destructively beautiful it was. This was no delicate flower, no spring butterfly. This was a wolf in the hunt, dancing steel and whirling flame, white lightning in a violent sky.

Frankly, Cyrion was terrified.

He didn't want this strange and violent, this heartstoppingly and fiercely beautiful Adaia. There was no room in his world of warm hearths and snug beds for this hurricane of a woman. Already her sheer presence dwarfed his carefully constructed dreams.

"Listen, Cyrion," and she placed a calloused but somehow still exquisite hand on his shoulder, forcing him to look straight into those flint eyes. "I'll be honest. I'm sure you're a decent enough fellow, but I have no desire to get married. You see, I bring trouble. I don't have the silver to return your dowry, but I won't force you into a marriage that can only end badly."

"Adaia!" The male relative tugged at her elbow. "You can't say that! I promised the _hahren_ I'd make sure you get married. Look at all the work these good folk have done for the wedding!"

Something flashed in Adaia's hand, and shocked gasps rang through the alienage square. She held a dagger, finely crafted and enchanted with lightning. No alienage elf should have possessed such a thing.

"By the Maker, cousin, my parents didn't give me this dagger just because it looked pretty!" She snarled now, and if Cyrion thought her eyes hard before, she had seemed positively coquettish in comparison to her fury now. Even Valendrian, who was always so calm and composed there was talk of him becoming _hahren_ someday, took a hasty step back. The unfortunate cousin visibly cowered in terror. "I won't marry a man just because a doddering old fool wanted to get rid of me! I am a free spirit, not some sniveling elven slave!"

Cyrion stared, transfixed, at this insane woman standing coiled in the square, and he did not doubt for a moment that she would not hesitate to use that fine dagger. For a brief wild moment he wondered if this was what it felt like to be in love.

"What if the man wanted to marry you?"

His words produced even more shock among the onlookers than had the drawing of the dagger. Adaia whirled to face him, eyebrows raised from under rust red bangs.

To Cyrion's relief, her dagger was back in its scabbard when she spoke.

"Why would you ever want to do that?" And there was a real question in her voice.

_Because you are unknown_, he wanted to say. _Because you are wild and beautiful and free. Because you have eyes like flint and you are like lightning on the plains in a summer night. You make me want to break free of this false world, this tiny alienage, and look to the sky._

Instead he stupidly said, "Fifty silver is hard to come by."

"_Cyrion!_" hissed his father under his breath, as his mother's eyes shone with unshed tears and her face threatened to crumple. Cyrion stood shocked by his own inept stupidity, wondering why Adaia didn't draw her dagger and run him through right then and there.

She laughed then, low and easy, and the sound sent warm shivers running through his limbs. "Truer words were never spoken. Well, you are serious?"

He nodded, still not sure if the movement was of his own volition or if he had been possessed by one of the demons the Chantry constantly harped about. Whatever madness had seized him had already picked up far too much momentum to be stopped now. He could only allow himself to be swept up in its path.

"Cousin, you should thank Cyrion. Looks like I won't have to gut you today after all."

"Thank you, Cyrion," said the cousin, sounding genuinely thankful. "Maker be with you."

Cyrion questioned his own sanity yet again. He wondered if this was going to become a habit.

"What are you waiting for, Tabris? Get your fifty silvers' worth. To the altar!" Adaia looped an arm around his and pulled him to where the bemused Chantry sister stood ready.

The marriage blessings were made and the vows were sworn. Cyrion Tabris was now a married man.


End file.
